Valentin Bianchi

Biography:
Valentin Bianchi is a freelance photojournalist based in Liège, Belgium, close to Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Between work on long-term issues, he also shoots regularly for wire agencies and newspapers on current affairs or...
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PHOTOGRAPHY PROJECT

The Final Step

Early morning in the beginning of 2016 near the Jungle of Calais on January 18th, 2016. The authorities asked to evacuate a buffer zone near the highway, the refugees helped by volunteers move the shelters and tents past two days while temperatures are frosty.

The refugee camp has settled on a vacant lot of the village. Nothing is planned to accommodate the life on the spot and the abundant rains, linked to the freezing temperatures of this beginning of January, make the life incredibly painful.

January 16th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The refugee camp has settled on a vacant lot of the village. Nothing is planned to accommodate the life on the spot and the abundant rains, linked to the freezing temperatures of this beginning of January, make the life incredibly painful.

January 16th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. Two vans from England bring clothes and a few wooden pallets to help the families on the camp. Building materials are prohibited by the municipality to avoid the construction of a second Jungle.

January 18th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The refugee camp has settled on a vacant lot of the village. Nothing is planned to accommodate the life on the spot and the abundant rains, linked to the freezing temperatures of this beginning of January, make the life incredibly painful.

January 15th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The refugee camp has settled on a vacant lot of the village. Nothing is planned to accommodate the life on the spot and the abundant rains, linked to the freezing temperatures of this beginning of January, make the life incredibly painful.

January 16th, 2016, Calais, France. The entrance to the Calais Jungle, located under a highway bridge, is often the place, in the evening, for calls to relatives left behind. It is also the place of organization for attempts to cross to England.

January 18th, 2016, Calais, France. The cold and frost cover the clothes and blankets left by the refugees who occupied this area of the Jungle of Calais a few days ago. The prefecture demanded that a buffer zone be maintained between the camp and the nearby highway.

January 16th, 2016, Calais, France. The buffer zone ordered by the prefecture of Calais begins to set up. In the evening, the young people of the Calais Jungle come to search the remains left by the other refugees.

January 17th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The cold is more and more present on the Grande Synthe refugee camp. Families are trying to warm up as they can. Sometimes even lighting fires in makeshift shelters. Fires are common in these shelters.

January 17th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The cold is more and more present on the Grande Synthe refugee camp. Families are trying to warm up as they can. Sometimes even lighting fires in makeshift shelters. Fires are common in these shelters.

January 17th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The cold is more and more present on the Grande Synthe refugee camp. Families are trying to warm up as they can. Sometimes even lighting fires in makeshift shelters. Fires are common in these shelters.

January 17th, 2016, Grande Synthe, France. The cold is more and more present on the Grande Synthe refugee camp. Families are trying to warm up as they can. Sometimes even lighting fires in makeshift shelters. Fires are common in these shelters.

2015 was undoubtedly the most difficult year in Europe’s on-going migration crisis. The latest estimations speak of 800 000 refugees arriving in 2015.As a result, refugee camps like the infamous “Calais Jungle” in Northern France have grown in size. But the Jungle is over-shadowed by an even more atrocious camp in terms of sanitary conditions, Grande Synthe outside Dunkirk, nicknamed “The Hell of the Jungle”.

According to UNHCR, the number of displaced people and refugees following the various world conflicts is approximately 60 million people for 2014.About nine out of ten refugees live in neighboring countries to their own. For example, Lebanon hosts more than a million Syrian refugees according to the latest estimates.

Only for 2015, about 800 OOO refugees and migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. Often in perilous conditions that we now know. Are estimated at more than 2,000 men, women and children who lost their lives during their attempt to cross the Mediterranean.52% of refugees arriving in Europe over the past year are Syrian refugees.

Most of them have one obsession, reaching United Kingdom. Regardless of the price they have to pay to get there.Geographically, the area of Calais and Dunkirk is among the closest French cities of the English shore. Calais focuses besides Ferries terminal and access to the Eurotunnel site.

France and England are deploying a considerable energy to prevent all attempts to access different terminals. The presence of the French CRS near the Calais Jungle is impressive. Whether day or night.The goal is simple, nobody should pass.

Given the difficulty of growing to try his luck in Calais, other alternatives are considered and some camps are created, never far from highways or motorway service area.If Calais becomes too complicated for the smugglers, they then attempt to bring up refugees upstream of the flow of trucks.

These repeated efforts lead to the birth of new camps like Grande Synthe near Dunkirk.Where the Jungle of Calais managed to organize and develop a functioning neighborhoods with churches, shops, restaurants; Grande Synthe struggle desperately to get out of the mud and waste.This camp had about 400 people at the end of August 2015, but since it only grew to about 2,500 people today.Here, you must cling to trees to keep from falling. The mud is cold, slippery and freezing temperatures from this January did not help.You must find a way between the wooden pallets, the remains of ancient tents, water-soaked mattress.Following the hesitations of the state, fearing that the camp becomes permanent and preventing the arrival of materials that would create temporary shelters a little more comfortable, Médecins Sans Frontières decided to support the creation of a new camp on another field.The construction of it is underway and is expected to propose a more livable solution for these families from predominantly Kurdish areas of Syria and Iraq.This will be one more step for them who want only one thing, cross over to UK.

They do not have the will to establish there but simply escaping the war ravaging their country, waiting for better days.